


Vinny gets injured

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Vinny gets a life [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 13:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3979174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If there’s an ‘accident’ in practice I’m unfriending you,” Thomas says. He uses air quotes to make his point clear.</p><p>“Unfriending me,” Anton repeats flatly.</p><p>“On facebook and irl,” Thomas confirms.</p><p>“We don’t have facebook,” Anton says, and then, “I don’t even know why I’m friends with you in the first place,” under his breath. And then so quietly Thomas almost misses it, “You wouldn’t unfriend me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vinny gets injured

It happens against the Whalers, because Anton clearly needs more ammo in his totally reasonable and not at all dad related hatred of the team. 

Thomas is already mostly down, reaching to freeze the puck with his glove, when Carmen’s shoved onto him, landing heavily on Thomas’ right leg. Thomas feels his ankle twist under Carmen’s weight, and has a second to think _uh oh_ before the pain flares up. Play’s whistled dead, Carmen scrambles off, and their trainer Stephane comes out while Thomas tries to summon the will to stand up. He does, eventually, with the help of Stephane and Carmen, who apologises profusely the whole way to the bench, even though it’s clearly not his fault. The Whalers better get a goalie interference penalty, that’s all Thomas can say.

Fournier’s on the ice, taps Thomas’ helmet as he’s helped up through the door.

“Broken?” he asks, frowning.

“Sprained I think,” Thomas says. “Torn, maybe.”

“Thank you Dr. Vincent,” Stephane says dryly. 

They get him out of his skates before it swells up too badly, and the doctor, summoned from the stands, confirms what Thomas totally called. Sprain, nothing too serious. The refs didn’t even give the Habs a powerplay, which is bull, but he gets to watch the game in the office instead of getting hauled to the hospital, so that’s nice. 

Fourns holds onto the lead, stops everything he faces, and they come out victorious. Thomas is sitting in his spot when they all come in. Fournier would usually forcibly move him, but instead he ruffles Thomas’ hair. “Sprain?”

“Sprain,” Thomas confirms. “Thanks Mich.” Fournier played last night, and the twins both have bad colds right now and are apparently driving Chloe to tear her hair out and consider tearing Fournier’s out as well. Thomas knows he’s freaking exhausted. 

“Eh, you set me up,” Fournier says. 

Carmen and Anton are hovering. Carmen still looks super apologetic, and Anton just has an Anton face. 

“Stop apologising,” Thomas says, before Carmen even opens his mouth. “I’m fine, dude. Go take a shower or something, you reek.”

“Sorry!” Carmen gets out, but otherwise obeys.

“I hate the fucking Whalers,” Anton says. “Those fuckers.”

“Nice vocabulary,” Fourns says dryly as he unbuckles his pads, having settled for stealing Thomas’ stall right back.

Anton takes a step forward, into their space, and Fournier rolls his eyes but continues undressing. Thomas cranes his head up to meet his eye.

“Just a sprain, Tony,” Thomas says. “Quit hovering.”

“I’m driving you home,” Anton says, not a question. 

“Then hurry up and shower,” Thomas says. “I’m tired.” Anton doesn’t move. “And my ankle hurts,” he adds.

Anton goes back to his stall speedily.

“You’re a manipulative little shit,” Fournier says. He doesn’t sound disapproving.

“It _does_ hurt,” Thomas says. Admittedly not so much he can’t hang out in the room, since he’s been patted on the head by the doctor and fed his OTCs, but Anton hovering over him doesn’t help anyone.

“Never teach my daughters those eyes,” Fournier says.

“What eyes?” Thomas asks.

“ _Those_ eyes, you sorry looking little shit,” Fournier says.

Thomas pouts at him.

“Exactly,” Fournier says.

Anton’s showered in pretty much record time, and appears with crutches. 

Thomas gives him a sceptical look.

“You’ll try to walk on it, and you’ll make it worse,” Anton says, and thrusts the crutches at him.

Thomas hates crutches, they end up leaving him more sore, because he thinks he might be using them wrong and putting too much weight on his armpits or something, but he knows Anton isn’t going to budge, so he takes them, and they go to Anton’s car at a snail’s pace, Thomas getting used to crutches again and Anton walking at the same ridiculous shuffling speed. 

Anton drives him home, responding to Thomas’ longing look towards his car with, “I’ll pick it up for you tomorrow, you can’t drive anyway.”

Thomas huffs and gets into Anton’s car, twiddles his thumbs in the car and re-programs all of Anton’s radio stations as Anton picks up some take-out, and is practically ready for bed when Anton’s helping him out of the car, like he can’t stand up on his own.

Anton looks doubtfully at Thomas’ crutches, then at the stairs to the townhouse. 

“If you try to carry me, I’m kicking you out,” Thomas warns.

Instead they leave the crutches on the ground floor, and Anton helps Thomas up the stairs. He could do it on his own, it’d be slow but there’s a railing and his leg isn’t broken or anything, but he doesn’t want to injure himself worse, and it makes Anton happy, so.

Anton goes to fetch them while Thomas unlocks his door, and transfers the takeout to plates because he’s weird about eating out of containers, while Thomas tries to make himself comfortable on the couch and only bangs his ankle like two times doing so.

Thomas has managed to steal most of the couch by the time Anton comes back in, and Anton makes himself space in the tiny portion that remains without complaint, so clearly he was actually worried.

Thomas rests the plate of food on his chest and puts his feet in Anton’s lap. Anton eyes him, but it was a painstakingly slow process because Thomas was trying not to twinge anything, so he could have stopped it at any time. Thomas sees right through that look. 

“I’m supposed to keep my ankle elevated,” Thomas tells him.

“More elevated than that,” Anton shoots back, but all he does is grab the throw pillow beside him and puts it in his lap, carefully maneuvering Thomas until his feet are on the cushion. 

“You want me to stay over?” Anton asks.

“I have a sprain, not a concussion,” Thomas says, but he kind of does want Anton to. Anton makes better breakfasts than him, and they have to catch up on Community. “Bring me a beer.”

“What’d you take?” Anton asks.

“Oh my god, Advil, you nerd,” Thomas says. 

Anton frowns. “They didn’t give you anything?” he asks, and then in the next breath, “I’m still not getting you a beer.”

“I’m injured,” Thomas says.

“You’re only injured when it gets you things,” Anton says, which Thomas isn’t going to deny. He wiggles the toes of his left foot in Anton’s lap.

“Fine,” Anton says, and gets them both a beer while Thomas is queuing Community up on Netflix and trying not to spill food on his face, eating it horizontally.

They watch a couple of episodes, and Thomas dutifully finishes his food and his beer before his eyes are heavy. 

“Bed,” Anton tells him, and Thomas doesn’t argue either that or Anton’s insistence on walking him to his room, because at least no crutches are involved. He lingers in the doorway while Thomas changes into pyjamas. 

“You’re creepy,” Thomas tells him, feeling Anton’s eyes on him.

“Whatever,” Anton says dismissively.

Thomas sits on his bed. “Okay, out with it.”

“Carmen should learn to manage staying on his goddamn skates,” Anton says. “And also, what the fuck, he’s not D, the hell was he doing crashing the crease, he would have just as likely put that puck in as stopped it.”

Thomas patiently waits to see if Anton’s done. He seems to be, for the moment. “You know it’s not Carmen’s bad,” Thomas says. “You literally spent half an hour ranting about how dirty the Whalers play.”

Anton grunts.

“If there’s an ‘accident’ in practice I’m unfriending you,” Thomas says. He uses air quotes to make his point clear.

“Unfriending me,” Anton repeats flatly.

“On facebook and irl,” Thomas confirms.

“We don’t have facebook,” Anton says, and then, “I don’t even know why I’m friends with you in the first place,” under his breath. And then so quietly Thomas almost misses it, “You wouldn’t unfriend me.”

Thomas beams at him. He totally wouldn’t, but he doesn’t want Carmen to join him on short term injured reserve. Carmen would probably talk through every game. He already does that on the bench, it’d be even worse from a box. 

“Good night you psycho,” Thomas tells him.

“Good night klutz,” Anton says.

“Wait, now this is my fault?” Thomas asks.

“No,” Anton says. “It’s the fucking Whalers.”

“Go plot revenge somewhere else and let me sleep,” Thomas says, and Anton leans over the bed to flick him in the forehead, which is unnecessary and rude, before he leaves the room, shutting the light off on his way.

Anton makes him breakfast the next morning, before he and the rest of the team head to the airport. Thomas is kind of sulky about it, because if they were still at home he’d be able to go to the games and limp around the locker room, but instead he’ll be stuck watching it on TV and not having anyone’s lap to elevate his ankle in. And they’re still going to make him do physio but he won’t have any teammates to bother. It sucks.

Anton makes a frowny face out of maple syrup on Thomas’ pancakes. “Look,” he says. “It’s you.” He’s kind of a jerk like that.

Thomas frowns at him. 

“We’ll be back in four days,” Anton says. “And you know you wouldn’t have played anyway.”

True enough; the next two opponents are division rivals and close enough to the Habs in the standings that there’s no way Fourns wouldn’t have played both, especially with the day off in between. That’s not really the point, though. Better to watch from the bench than the box or his living room, better to be in the plane, on the bus, sharing a room with Anton that looks basically like every room he shares with Anton. He doesn’t like it when he’s left behind.

It’s as sucky as he figured it’d be. He’s supposed to stay off his ankle, let it recover enough that he can do simple exercises again, so he’s stuck in the weight room, which is not his favourite place. At least none of the guys are there to make fun of the fact that he can’t bench press as much as them. His is not a brute strength position. Him and Fourns can kick everyone’s asses at yoga.

No one respects the fact that him and Fourns can kick their asses at yoga.

He has to watch the games at home, too, which is terrible, because he has no one to fret with him, just a throw pillow he hugs to himself. They win one and lose the other, both tight games, and the result wouldn’t have been any different if he was there, but at least he could have watched it shoulder to shoulder with other people who cared.

Anton texts him multiple times a day, and Fourns calls him after both games, but yeah, it sucks. 

Fourns invites him for dinner the day after they come back, and then strong-arms him into coming when he tries to politely decline. He doesn’t know if he has the energy to deal with the girls right now, but it’s not a problem, because they both tiptoe around him like his head’s hurt and not his ankle. Not really surprising considering Fournier’s concussion last year. They very obediently watch Scooby Doo with him before dinner, and only get into one fight.

Thomas is suspicious about Fournier’s motivation in inviting him for dinner. 

He can’t complain though, because Fourns is a pretty good cook when he doesn’t have kids hanging over him, and it’s lamb and rice for the adults and some crazy delicious macaroni and cheese for the kids. Okay, the kids and Thomas, because Fournier knows his eating habits, and he’d smirked when he handed Thomas the bowl, but at least Thomas didn’t have to stare apologetically at a plate of baby animal.

He goes home with leftover mac and cheese, because apparently Fourns made enough for a small army, and goes to practice the next day, gets his hair ruffled by at least three guys on the way in.

“You walking on it?” Anton asks him.

“No, Tony, I was a good boy,” Thomas says.

“Gross,” Mayer mutters.

Thomas ignores Mayer, and also the dirty look Anton shoots at Mayer. “Still on schedule,” Thomas says. “Like the last five times you asked.”

“It wasn’t five times,” Anton says.

It was. It has been five days, and Anton has asked _every day_. He is actually worse than Thomas’ grandma, who calls every time he gets even a little hurt, and acts like he’s dying. She just gets worried, at least. Anton gets mad.

“It was five times,” Thomas tells him. “Maybe six.”

Anton plants two kisses to his cheeks in full view of Mayer and goes to get dressed.

“You’re very immature,” Thomas tells his back, because that was unsubtle.

“Isn’t that what the French do?” Anton asks, without turning around.

Thomas, along with half the room, shoots him the finger. He doesn’t even need to see Anton’s face to know he’s smirking.

“It’s what your mom does,” Thomas says, and then when Anton comes back for him, “It _is_ what your mom does. No, hey, I’m injured! Fourns!”

“You bring this shit on yourself, kid,” Fourns says, and then leaves him to get dead-armed, the traitor.


End file.
